Why we need to invest in defence #SmartDef

“The economic crisis has hit our defence spending hard,” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, addressing a meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Prague, the Czech Republic, on 12 November. “Compared to 2009, total Allied defence expenditure last year declined by over 56 billion US dollars in real terms.” It was inevitable that the deepening economic crisis would impact on defence spending – governments faced with slow or non-existent growth, rising unemployment and increasing debt burdens have had many competing priorities. With the prospect of NATO’s military operation in Afghanistan transitioning towards a training mission at the end of 2014, there is an added risk that attention and resources will continue to be diverted away from sustained investment in defence. Mr Fogh Rasmussen emphasized the need to start investing in defence again, once condit...